


Episode 9: Lubbock, Texas

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Series: The Canyon's Arms Are All We Know [9]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 08:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19128313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: It doesn't take Alex long to realize she made a mistake.





	Episode 9: Lubbock, Texas

WELCOME TO LUBBOCK, TEXAS

BIRTHPLACE OF BUDDY HOLLY

 

It was early enough in the evening that Alex would normally have found her way to the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce and figured out whether there was a Buddy Holly museum or some big statue of his head somewhere in town. But she wasn’t in the mood.She pulled into the first Days Inn that she spotted, did a little bike maintenance, and then went up to her room and ordered a roast beef sub from a sandwich shop in the local Yellow Pages that was sitting on the nightstand in her room.

She called home. Clark answered. “Hey Alex! How’s vacation? Where are you?”

“I’m in Texas. Lubbock. Apparently, the birthplace of Buddy Holly.”

“Oh, cool! Do they have a museum?”

She was listless and Clark was too enthusiastic. “Yeah, probably. I’m gonna go by the Chamber of Commerce tomorrow and see what they’ve got. I just got off a long ride so I’m relaxing now.” She heard the score of _Fantastic Mr. Fox_ in the background again.“Fantastic Mr. Fox, huh?”

“Yup. It’s getting so even I know the all the lines,” he chuckled.

“How’s Kara doing? Eliza said you’ve been taking her out a bit?”

“Oh, she’s doing great!” he enthused. “Really starting to master the heat vision. Getting good at focusing, aiming, controlling… I really wish we’d done this before.”

“Well, you might not have been able to communicate as effectively if you had tried before,” Alex sighed. “I mean, when she first got out of that pod after 12 years in the Phantom Zone, staring into the void… well, you remember.”

Kara had been lost in her own head, unheeding, unspeaking. A twelve year old girl traumatized beyond the ability to interact with people.It had taken years to get her to the point she was at now. The yellow sun might make her invincible, but it didn’t exactly fix mental illness. That all had to be done the long, slow way.

“Yeah, I do,” Clark said softly.

“Is that Alex?” It was Lucy in the background.

“Shit,” Alex hissed. “Clark, no–”

But it was too late. Lucy was on the phone. “Hey, Al. Having fun?”

Alex sighed. She didn’t want to talk to Lucy. In fact, her ex-girlfriend was probably the last person she felt like talking to.“Yes.I mean, no.I mean, I was.I don’t know. Put Clark back on.”

“Oh, god,” Lucy chuckled wryly, “I know that tone.Hang on, let me go out on the porch.”

Alex listened to the clomping of Lucy’s footsteps, and heard the background ambience change to the outdoors, breezes, crickets.“Luce, really, I don’t wanna–”

“OK, so don’t bullshit me,” Lucy said firmly. “What’s happening?”

Alex groaned and stretched out on the bed. “Luce, I don’t know.”

“Where are you?”

“Lubbock.”

“Is it nice?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. It’s Texas.It’s hot.”

“Where were you?”

“Near Roswell.”

“And?”

“Luce, leave me alone.”

“Nope.”

“Come on–”

“Al, you met someone, didn’t you?”

Alex pouted. “Why’d you have to ask me that?”

“Because, dummy, I care. I want to know. Now spill.”

Kicking off her boots, Alex stared up at the water-stained stucco ceiling. “I don’t know. I almost wish I hadn’t … but … it just felt…” That gnawing feeling started in her stomach again.

Lucy sighed. She was well experienced with getting Alex to do her most-hated chore; talking about her feelings. “Okay, calm down.What was her name?”

“Astra.”

“Oooh, exotic. Where’s she from?”

“I don’t know exactly. I think she’s here illegally, but I don’t think she’s Mexican. She had kind of weird speech patterns sometimes, like English was a second language, but she didn’t really have an accent that I could place.”

“Of all the women in New Mexico that you could pick up,” Lucy chortled, “you picked up an illegal immigrant.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry. So, how did you meet her?”

“Well, my bike ran out of gas on Route 70, and–”

“How the hell did you run out of gas?”

“The sign said last chance Texaco, but I didn’t realize it was really my last chance for Texaco.”

Lucy snorted. “Disaster. So you ran out of gas, and?”

So Alex told her the story, how Astra had been selling produce by the roadside, and then how she’d invited Alex to lunch, and how delicious her huckleberries had been, and how she’d had this amazing little farm, all in boxes, and lived on a National Park campground, and how beautiful she was, and how lonely.

“So, did you, uh...?”

Alex flushed. “I’m not telling you that.”

“So, yes.”

Alex huffed. “Yes. And we agreed beforehand that we couldn’t … you know … have a relationship, but…”

Lucy groaned out loud. “Why not, Danvers? Because she lives in a trailer?”

“I just…” Alex grew flustered. “…Luce, I can’t… be in a serious thing! I mean it’s one thing for me to take a vacation and you guys cover for a little while, but I can’t …” She floundered.

“You and I made it work, for a while,” Lucy said softly.

“Yeah, but… it was easier because we worked together… and… you know…”Alex’s eyes grew warm, now. She didn’t know why she was even welling up, but she felt a little tightening in her throat, too.

Lucy sighed. “Look, like I said, Al, you have a lot to give. And you need a lot, too. And I get why having Jimmy around was too scary for you. But you’re terrified of being vulnerable. All that stuff you used to say on the radio, about not being able to really be loved unless you let someone get close? That was all true. You were right.”

Alex’s chin trembled. “Jesus, you were listening to that damn show too?”

“Yeah, you soft-hearted dumb-ass. Because I care about you,” Lucy chided, her voice affectionate. “It was a nice show.”

“But… it’s… what if I don’t have enough to give? What if I can’t give a lover, and my family, everything they need?”

Lucy let out a long, slow breath.“Alex. You are, and always have been, and always will be, enough. Do you really not see that?”

“No,” Alex sniffled.

“Yeah.You are. You crave connection, so much, and yet you connected so strongly with someone that you jumped into bed with her two hours after meeting her –which you never, EVER, do, by the way– but you walked away from her because you’re so fucking crazy, you don’t think you deserve it. If I was there, I’d slap you upside the head.”

Tears were flowing now, and there was nothing to be done about it. “Luce, I fucked up.”

Lucy sighed sympathetically. “Yeah, you did.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know, that’s up to you. But if it was me, I’d go back and see her again. See what happens.”

“Are you sure?” Alex asked skeptically. “This sounds like one of those things that seems like a good idea until I do it and then it’s so obviously a bad idea that I can’t believe I got talked into it.”

“Well, those are my specialty.”

 

 

***********

 

 

Alex found a liquor store and bought a small bottle of bourbon.She drank half of it to calm her jangling nerves, and then went to sleep.

She woke up blushing from dreams about Astra, showered, and hit the road without so much as a drive-by of the Buddy Holly Museum, if there was one.She was headed back to a town in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, to a National Parks campground, to see if the connection she’d made was real. 

The bike roared, and her heart was in her mouth for the entire three hours back.

She arrived at the campground to find Astra’s plot empty. Her heart sank.

She trudged up to the campgrounds office and knocked on the little cabin’s door.A ranger in a tall hat answered. “Can I help you?”

“The woman on plot 17B, did she … is she gone? Like, gone, gone?”

The ranger nodded. “She checked out last evening, actually.”

“Do you… do you have her um.Her contact information? Like, a phone number or anything?”

“Actually, I can’t give you that information.”

“But I … I have something of hers,” Alex lied. “I visited with her yesterday and she left it… can you… can I give you my number or something, and-?”

The ranger sat down at his desk and opened his ledger.“Mm, now let’s see, maybe I can contact her for you, and… hm. That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?”

“No phone number.”

Alex tried to keep the desperation off her face. “Nothing? Not even a mailing address?”

He shook his head. “This shouldn’t have… hm.”He looked up at her.“17B, right?” He looked at the book again.“Angie Merkel?”

Alex looked at him blankly for a moment.Right, her pseudonym. Angie. _But Angie Merkel?Seriously?_ That was literally the worst pseudonym she had ever heard.“So, nothing, huh?”

He looked apologetic. “Sorry, miss.”

“Did you… did you know her at all?”

He shook his head. “Not really. She kept to herself, cleaned up her site, didn’t make trouble.”

Alex sighed heavily.“Alright.Thanks anyway.”

 

******

 

 

She couldn’t remember exactly where the diner was that they had gone to together, so she drove in the general direction until she found it. She walked in and looked around, knowing that it was too much to hope that she would simply be here. But that waitress, Marlene, had seemed to know Astra. Maybe Marlene could tell Alex something.

Marlene wore her red hair pinned in a tidy updo, and was laughing with a couple of truck drivers at the lunch counter. Alex strode up and smiled in a way that she hoped was ingratiating.

“Hi, uh, you’re Marlene, right?”

Marlene gave her a pleasant, but not particularly familiar smile. “I sure am, sugar, what can I do for you?”

“I… I was in here yesterday for lunch with the woman that has the produce truck?”

“Oh, yes! Angie, sure. I remember you now.”

“How, um…”She floundered. “She… I uh, left something in her truck and I was trying to get in touch with her, but…”

One of the truckers contributed, “Green pickup truck, right? She’s usually out there on 70?”

Alex nodded vigorously.“Yeah, but she’s not today.”

Marlene sighed. “Oh, I wish I could help you more, honey, but nobody knows her real well. She mostly keeps to herself.But I think she mentioned one time that she was a mechanic at that Speedway station in Cortez for a while. Maybe they have a way of getting hold of her.”

Alex nodded.“Thanks,” she said, “that’s helpful.”

 

*****

 

Alex rode to Cortez.She found the Speedway station, where Marlene had said it would be.

She parked her bike, and made her way up to the little office attached to the repair garage. An older man with a push broom mustache and a trucker cap glanced up at her. “What can I do you for, miss?”

She looked at the name stitched on his gray work shirt, Walt.“Hi there, Walt.I’m, uh… I’m looking for a lady who maybe was an employee of yours at some point?”

He scrutinized her. “Why, what’d she do?”

“Huh?”She realized he was joking and laughed nervously.“Oh, yeah, um. No, it’s nothing like that. I just… I uh… we met the other day and she accidentally …. I accidentally left something of mine with her and I need to find her because it’s something I, uh… really regret losing.But she doesn’t seem to be around anywhere, and…”

“You left something of yours with her?” came an older female voice from behind her.Alex turned around.A heavyset woman with a long grey ponytail came in, sizing her up.“Who exactly would you be looking for?”

“Uh, her name is Angie.Marlene at the diner near the Nature Preserve said that she worked here.”

“Oh, she used to. Hasn’t in a while though.”The woman continued to inspect her.“So, I’m gonna take a wild guess.You’re Alex.”

Alex stared at her in shock fora long moment.“How did you know that?”

The woman held up her hand, and with her fingers, began ticking things off.“Well, one: Angie came in here last night in an absolute tizzy because she met some girl.Two: that girl was named Alex. Three: I reckon you’re a pretty enough girl for a girl like Angie.Four: in the time we know Angie, nobody else has ever come here looking for her, not for any reason, not even once.And five: I saw you get off that motorcycle and I know cause my niece told me that lesbians love their motorcycles, so that makes it pretty good odds that you’re Angie’s Alex.And six…”

She stopped.She was holding a can of Diet Coke in one hand and was unable to hold up a sixth finger.

Walt helpfully held up a finger.“And six, honey?”

“Thank you, honey. And six, you look like just about as much of a lovestruck mess as she did. So?”

Alex’s head spun.“I’m sorry, what… what’s your name?”

The woman held out her hand. “Clementine.”

Alex numbly took the woman’s hand and shook it. “Well, you already know my name, I guess.”

Clementine smirked. “Thought so.Well, ain’t that some luck.”She looked at Walt.“Ain’t that some luck, honey?”

Walt nodded and turned back to his computer screen. “It sure is some luck, Clem,” he agreed.

Clementine pulled up a chair and invited Alex to sit.She disappeared and then reappeared a few minutes later with a cold bottle of water, which Alex took a long drink from. Then she sat down in a chair facing Alex, smiling pleasantly, but still sizing her up.Alex had the feeling that this was about to be an interrogation, but she tried to stay calm. Yes, this woman potentially was all that stood between her and finding Astra again, but she had been interrogated by scarier folks than this.

“So, Alex. You got a last name?”

“Uh, yes ma’am.Uh, Danvers. Do you… I’m sorry … can you just… do you know where she went?”

Clem held up a finger.“Ssssh.”She was still friendly, but she was also not about to give Alex anything until she was sure she ought to. “And where are you from?”

“California, ma’am.England, California. Soybean country.”

Clem nodded again.“Alright. And what do you do for a living?”

Alex took a breath.Astra had probably told her whatever she knew about Alex.“I work for the FBI.”

“So, an agent of the FBI, hm? And you need the help of some gas station owners to find your girlfriend?”

Alex shrugged.“Well, it only took me half a day to find you folks. Considering she didn’t give me a last name and she’s driving a vehicle with no tags, that’s not too shabby, I’d say.”

The corners of Clem’s eyes creased with amusement.“Spunky,” she chuckled. “Ain’t she spunky, Walt?”

“Yep, spunky,” he agreed, not looking up.

“Well, we fixed the tag situation. Sorta.”Clem eyed her for a few minutes more. “So what’d you leave with her?”

Alex surrendered.“Nothing, actually. It’s just, my other option was to come in here flashing my law enforcement credentials and frankly, if you guys are her friends, you probably would be inclined to give me a whole lot of nothing because you’d want to protect her. ‘I left something in her car’ seemed like a better tactic.” She drank from the water Clem had handed her and gave her an expectant look.

Clem smirked. “And what is it you plan on doing when you do get ahold of her?”

Her confidence, which had started a feeble effort at sitting up, lay back down. “I don’t know. I just think maybe I made a mistake, ruling things out. I just want to see her again and see if… if there’s something really there.” She gave Clementine a pleading look. “It’s really hard for me to get close to people but… it felt like we fit. That doesn’t happen to me a lot. And I’m afraid I might have blown it.”

Clementine sat, meeting her imploring look with an inscrutable one.After several agonizing seconds, she spoke. “Now, I’m going to say this once. I have no idea what that girl has been through, but we never had another shop assistant that was as honest, hardworking, polite and punctual as Angie. I don’t know why she’s got no family and that ain’t any business of mine, but she never came to dinner with Walt and me, not even once, because she’s evidently too scared to let anyone near her. So.”She drummed her fingers on her knee for a moment. “So obviously, you must be something special.”

Alex chewed on her lower lip, waiting for Clementine to finish her thought.

“It so happens I have a means of getting hold of Angie. She went on a little road trip for reasons I can’t begin to tell you, but I made her get a burner phone before she left, and I have the number. Now. I will not share that number with you. But if you give me yours, I will call her immediately and tell her you were here.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief.“Oh god, thank you so much–”

But Clem held up a hand. “But listen, Miss Alex Danvers of England, California. Whatever that girl’s been through in her life, she doesn’t need any heartbreak from some West Coast spook yanking her chain.So unless you want an army of rednecks on your doorstep, I would make sure that this is what you really want.”

“I just want to be with her,” Alex whispered. “I want to make her feel safe.”

Clem considered her. After a moment, she said, “That, my dear, is the answer that has ensured that I will not be chasing you out of my shop with a shotgun.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

Clem handed her a sticky note and a pen. “You write your number on there and I will call your Angie, and if she wants to talk to you, she’ll call you.”

Alex scribbled her number down quickly and handed it to Clem and then stood there awkwardly while Clem looked at it and then back up at her.

“Well?” Clem said after a moment. “We’re done here. Go wherever it is you go while you wait for someone to call you.” She waved her hand like she was shooing a cat.

Alex flushed. “Sorry. Thank you.” She stumbled out of the shop, tripping over her own feet with anxiety and hope and embarrassment. “Thank you, really. I mean it.”

Alex was sure she’d seen a Best Western a little ways back.Might as well head that way.There wasn’t much she could do now except wait.

 


End file.
